


The Map and the Territory

by magnetic_pole



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Books, London, M/M, Maps, Nerdiness, urban history
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-24 23:02:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22005913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnetic_pole/pseuds/magnetic_pole
Summary: Three maps of London that light up John Watson’s imagination.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15
Collections: Watson's Woes WAdvent 2019





	The Map and the Territory

**Author's Note:**

> You might be interested in looking at images from the book in question, available over [here.](https://booth.lse.ac.uk/learn-more) 221 Baker Street's likely location is in the far northwest corner of Sheet 7, Inner Western Central District.

One of the great tribulations of life with Sherlock Holmes is his tendency to focus completely on the task at hand. It can be flattering to be the subject of his attention, to be sure, but it is also quite frustrating to arrive home, say, one cold December afternoon, full of excitement and ready to discuss a recent discovery, only to find him sitting cross legged on the floor in his dressing gown before a pile of news clippings, lost in his own world. 

He did not look up. A single finger lifted into the air warned me not to interrupt. “Silence. I am looking for an heiress.”

“Not of marriageable age, I hope,” I said. 

He discarded one clipping over his shoulder dramatically and moved onto another, holding it close to his eyes as he skimmed the fine text. He frowned, discarded this one, too, and rummaged deeper in his pile. 

My little joke had fallen flat. 

What had I expected, though? I set my prize down on the table near the window, resolving to wait for Holmes’ full attention before opening it. I took off my coat and gloves, retrieved the day’s newspaper, and settled down into my own chair by the fire. Field Marshall Lord Roberts, appointed supreme commander in South Africa, had departed Southampton; Mafeking was still under siege; as was Ladysmith. Such loss of life over Witwatersrand! Reports of plague in the Pacific, which piqued my interest as a medical man at the same time it elicited a sense of dread--

“Of course not,” Holmes said, at last, as if no time has passed at all. “After all, what kind of heiress would interest me?”

That made me chuckle. “Only one who is devilishly clever or who was murdered in mysterious circumstances.”

He set down his clippings and flashed me a quick but delighted smile. “On this occasion, the latter,” he said. “About six months ago; the details are similar to another death in the news today. What was it you wanted to tell me, my dear boy?” 

He knew; he always knew. “Later, my dear,” I said. “I don’t want to disturb you now.”

***

I was not to see him at dinner that evening. At last in possession of the obituary he had been seeking, he had departed for points unknown, refusing my assistance as unnecessary in such a small matter and unwise in such damp, chilly weather. A younger version of myself might have been disappointed, but almost two decades into our companionship, I knew Holmes rarely embarked on any adventure without thinking of me, however abrupt or thoughtless his departure might seem. If he said my company was unnecessary, I trusted that it was. On such an evening, I was content to sit before the fire with my day’s find. 

That afternoon, the magnetic lure of Sotheran’s had drawn me away from the crowds of Piccadilly to the quieter climes of Sackville street. I was not a habitual purchaser of specialist books, exactly, but I enjoyed the shop and occasionally found something relevant to my interests. The booksellers knew me well. No sooner had I entered than a copy of the second volume of Booth’s _Life and Labor of the People in London_ appeared in my hands, with a whispered reference to a surprisingly reasonable price. 

Both Holmes and I were well aware of Booth’s survey and the resulting publications. We had met Booth’s colleague Clara Collet while investigating a case that also took us to Toynbee Hall, and she occasionally consulted me on medical issues related to her economic research into the lives of working women. 

Miss Collet, in turn, had invited us to several lectures on the subject of urban poverty and on their efforts to document and map its prevalence in this great metropolis. Holmes, always interested in the unusual and the exceptional, sometimes grew restless with Booth’s attempt at classification and generalization; he tended to see exceptions where other sought a rule. But Booth’s discoveries fascinated me, particularly his maps. The same narrow lanes that were home to poverty, as Booth demonstrated, were known to Holmes and to myself to be loci of petty crime and infectious disease. What relation existed among these social illnesses? Was there a pathogen for crime, as there was for medical disease? 

Holmes scoffed at the notion, but as a student I had been deeply affected by the story of Doctor John Snow and his success at tracking the source of a cholera outbreak back to the Broad Street water pump, which seemed to offer a model for rational research in the modern age. In fact, we had spoken of Snow very early on in our friendship, Holmes and I, and he had been intrigued by the man’s method. Was not Snow a precursor to Holmes and his scientific methods, I asked? Perhaps certain types of medicine were not that different from the detection of crime, after all? I had not mentioned as much to Holmes, but I must confess: I have always dreamed that one day I might expand my writing from crime to include the mysteries of health and illness in the social body of a great city like London. 

I had never owned one of Booth’s magnificent volumes, but the wealth of detail and meticulously detailed colored maps proved impossible to resist. I returned home that evening in possession of an elegant volume wrapped in brown paper and a burning sense of wonder and curiosity I longed to share with Holmes. 

Holmes, however, was preoccupied with interests of his own. Never mind; it could wait.

***

I awoke the next morning to discover that not only had Holmes missed dinner, he had never joined me in bed; in fact, from a cursory look at the sitting room, he appeared never to have returned from the errand of the previous evening at all. That was not unusual; the man had no sense of time and an unhealthy disregard for his own health. 

Closer inspection proved me wrong, however, as it often does. Over breakfast I resolved to inspect the book on my own, Holmes being otherwise occupied for an indeterminate amount of time. As I moved from the dining table to the small table by the window to retrieve my volume, I realized that it had been freed from its brown paper wrap, and a folded sheet of writing paper had been left between the pages. I extracted the note, unfolded it, and recognized Holmes’ angular hand. 

It was a very rough map of central London, with our address clearly marked left of center. Key thoroughfares were indicated, as well as the nearby parks and the three closest train stations, and, to the south, the river. A series of mysterious landmarks were indicated with a terse ‘x’ and connected back to our lodgings by a light, dotted line. 

My finger traced one of the shortest of the lines, which seemed to lead home from the area near Wigmore Hall, where Holmes and I had seen a concert two or three weeks ago. What that was the ‘x’ indicated? Another cross marked Hatchard’s, clearly. Another, Simpson’s, near Somerset House--where we dined regularly, I realized, as I perceived the pattern. St Bart’s, of course. Old Scotland Yard on the Victoria Embankment. Parliament Hill. The Serpentine. The London Library. Covent Garden. Was that Liberty of London in Regent Street? Not a frequent destination, an apparent anomaly, but Holmes had visited recently to purchase some Indian silks I favored. 

I refolded the page of paper, noticing for the first time a narrow line of writing along the edge that appeared incomprehensible until I held it up to a small mirror on the mantlepiece: _Lovelorn London: The Peregrinations of Two Happy Fools,_ it read. 

A shadow flicked in the mirror as I deciphered this love note. Holmes had returned. He was disheveled and exhausted and tossed his hat and gloves onto the dining table with a huff of frustration. Evidently, it had been an unsatisfactory errand last night. 

I sat down at the dining table with him, poured him a cup of tea, and held up his sketch. “Mirror image messages?” I asked, teasing.

He shrugged. “The challenge is good for you. I would have encoded it, but I did not have the time.”

“Was the heiress a disappointment?” I asked. 

“A mere coincidence,” he said sadly. “As reluctant as I was to believe that.”

We sat in silence for a moment. 

“You forgot the Criterion,” I said. “Where Stamford first mentioned you. Perhaps the most important location of all.” 

His eyes widened, and he laughed. “How could I forget?” He fumbled for a pen in his waistcoat, took the sketch from me, and added it. “An inaccurate map is often worse than none at all. It remains open to misinterpretation.”

“Thank you.” I said. He was not much accustomed to declarations.

 _“De rien,”_ he said, shrugging again, cheeks flushing. “Tell me, now,” he added, changing the subject. “Why were you so excited to find this book? I looked at it last night, but it is obvious that there is much more to learn.”

I spent the better part of an hour telling him: flipping through the maps and charts, locating familiar streets, tracing the argument. Holmes was already aware of the basis of my interest, certainly; he had been at Booth’s lectures with me, enduring them with a minimum of fidgeting or objections, and he knew of my interest in Miss Collet’s research and our correspondence. He shared my love of maps of the metropolis and remembered our conversations about Snow’s discovery. 

He gave no hint of any that, though. He listened carefully, nodding, prompting me with questions—acknowledging, as the best partners do, that even one’s most intimate companion retains an element of ever-renewing mystery; that the map never approximates the territory; and that attending to that gap is the greatest challenge of all.

**Author's Note:**

> Further reading, if you are interested: [Charles Booth's London](https://mappinglondon.co.uk/2019/charles-booths-london-poverty-maps/) and [How the Victorians Mapped London's Cholera.](https://spatial.ly/2019/03/mapping-and-visualising-cholera-data/)


End file.
